(Bemidji) County Board to meet: Upgraded airport could bring new businesses (newspaper article)
Dan Hoehn
By Brad Swenson
07/13/2008
A nearly $600,000 upgrade to the Bemidji Regional Airport could
initially bring six or seven aviation-related businesses to Bemidji,
officials hope.
Beltrami County commissioners will be asked to sign off Tuesday on a
$250,000 state grant request which will be combined with a federal
grant to provide $578,300 for infrastructure improvements to 40 acres
on airport property. The matter is on their regular 5 p.m. agenda
when they meet at the County Administration Building, 701 Minnesota
Ave.
The request is for $250,000 from the state Department of Employment
and Economic Development’s Business Development Infrastructure
Program. The airport will also use $328,300 from the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development’s Economic Development Initiative.
The monies will help extend infrastructure into the 40-acre part of
the airport that is the West JOBZ Area Industrial/Technology Park.
It’s part of the state’s Jobs Opportunity Building Zones program that
offers tax breaks to new or expanding businesses that locate there.
“The extension will foster development of the first six or seven
aviation-related businesses in the Industrial/Technology Park,” Laurie
Kramka, the Headwaters Regional Development Commissioner staffer
handling the grant application, said in a memo.
The grant draft specifically mentions four businesses that are being
courted for the West JOBZ site, including a new business just located
in Bemidji. EXB Solutions, a software test engineering firm, located
in county-leased facilities downtown. At the end of their two-year
lease, “they would be willing to consider a new lease at a facility in
the Bemidji Regional Airport Technology Park,” the grant application
states. The firm wants to “be in close proximity to other aviation-
related companies,” it said. “By 2010 they would be in position to
look at an airport location.”
It cites another firm, Northern Pines Aeronautics, as a possible major
airplane refurbishing company that would concentrate on high-end
private and government aircraft. It is now working in Washington,
D.C., to secure a long-term refurbishing contract for the U.S. Navy
P-3 Orion aircraft. Formerly organized as Dream Catcher Aviation,
Northern Pines would require a 100,000-square-foot hanger and service
facility and an airplane taxiway. The P-3 Orion contract alone would
require 120 full-time employees.
The Joint Economic Development Commission is working with a Wisconsin
firm which has built two prototype aircraft it wants to manufacture,
and would like to locate a facility near Northern Pines, which would
install all the interior finishing and painting of the aircraft, the
grant application states. And, a Fargo, N.D., company is looking to
relocate their aviation service company that specializes in providing
for documentation and publication needs of the aviation community
closer to aircraft-related operations such as Bemidji Regional Airport
is trying to build.
The grant monies would allow improvements in two stages, the
application states. The first phase, at $397,100, would include the
installation of a water main and sanitary force main to part of the
West JOBZ area, with a sanitary lift station. The second phase, at
$181,200, would extend infrastructure to the farthest northern point
of the area, complete with installation of water mains, hydrants,
water services, sanitary gravity main, sanitary services, sanitary
force main and storm sewer culvert. Roadways would be constructed to
an aggregate surface, and would be paved in a later project phase.
Since 2003, nearly $16 million has been spent to undertake the
improvements that were outlined in the airport’s master plan, the
application states. The application also notes that the Bemidji
Industrial Park in south Bemidji is also expanding. “The two parks
have very different focus areas,” the grant application states.
“Whereas the Bemidji Industrial Park lots are targeted for general
industrial and business development, the West JOBZ Area Airport lots
are targeted only toward aviation-related businesses and industries.”
Most of the businesses attracted to the airport will require an
airport location, it notes.
Also part of the County Board’s regular agenda are County Highway
Department bid openings for a seal coat project on Irvine Avenue and
for a Blackduck multi-use trail. During the board’s 3 p.m. work
session, commissioners will meet with Beltrami County Extension
Service staff and hear program highlights, discuss completion of a
pilot county remonumentation project for survey corners and a possible
countywide timetable, and review a draft Beltrami County Water Surface
use Ordinance.
The latter was pulled from the board’s July 1 regular agenda to foster
more discussion on a uniform county ordinance setting a “slow no wake
speed” on specific environmentally sensitive lakes.
The board’s consent agenda includes county bills and warrant payment
listing, approval of the sale or transfer of assets involving
vehicles, approval of judicial ditch benefit percentages used to
calculate ditch levies and approval of summer flexible scheduling for
Real Estate and Tax Services staff.
Also, commissioners will be asked to appoint Linda Swenson as District
5 representative to the County Extension Committee, to approve an
amendment to a Health and Human Services Department contract with
Wildgen, Wilimek and Associates, a contract amendment with Hope House,
and receive monthly reports and licensing approvals and pay monthly
bills.
And, commissioners will be asked to recommend to the state that it
approve a new treatment program in the county, making it eligible for
state human services reimbursements. Bemidji Area Program for Recovery
is a new business featuring licensed alcohol and drug counselors.